THE NEW YORKER "/rote. "The only returns he got from his winnings was a trip to Albany on the night boat with about 30 girls from a Burlesque show. They stayed with him a. week and he gives each girl 150 dol- lars and all expenses paid. He said it was the only vacation he ever took and he wanted to do it right. When he come back he started to shoot craps again and inside of 6 weeks he was a bum. He did not care. He said once in my life I was thought highly of by the girls and I will die happy." Madden continued to write letters of this type off and on for six years, and many were quoted in college mag- azines. During this time his literary style remained the same, but he changed considerably. He became obsessed by a desire for culture, which was frus- trated by the Metropolitan Opera Com- pany. The opera symbolized culture for him, and he went to it repeatedly from 1 923 to 1 925, and then gave it up. "No matter how many times I sneak h ' " h " I up on t em operas, e wrote, swear I can't get it. I cannot uplift my- self. I thought by going again and again my soul would sometime respond, but it always sounds to me like they had took a brawl in my place and put it to music. If I said I enjoyed it I would be a four- flusher. I hate four-flushers and if I start to act like one, please knock my brains out with a beer bottle and I will appreciate it." He conceived a hatred for opera, which puzzled his customers, few of whom cared one way or the other. Since 1 925 his menus have car- ried the printed warning "Don't dis- cuss Opera and Socrates in here. We don't know a dam thing about it." He travelled a lot, accepting invitations to houseparties and football weekends at fraternity houses in various Eastern and Middle Western colleges, and making one trip to Italy. He had always worn two-pants suits, which he bought at Moe Levy's, a bargain clothier on Canal Street, but he now commenced wear- ing $ 8 5 Brooks suits, and sportswriters got in the habit of referring to him as "the Marquis of Fifty-first Street," a title which delighted him so much he has used it ever since, closing his letters "Most sincerely, The Mar- kee." By 1927 he was taking in around $17,000 a year. He was known to thou- sands of college students and recent graduates and his was the busiest col- lege-crowd speakeasy in the city. T 0- ward the end of that year, Warner Brothers bought the building in which he was located as part of a site for the Hollywood Theatre, and he was or- 23 HAPPY HEAR. T AND HEALTHY GLANDS I always was a one to smile, I never was a one to worry. "Take it easy, wait a while," I say, "the storm is just a flurry. The world is but a coconut, I'll get it open overnight!" I'm always optimistic. But T he pessimists are always right. The birdies chirrup; roses bloom; The sun is very bright and balmy. Why should I be glum with gloom, And why should I be sighing, ".L h me! " ? Stocks are stepping up a bit; They've found a cure for chestnut blight; The railroads cut their deficit; But pessimists are always right. The bilious viewpoint is a sign Of some deficiency of hormones. Adrenalin or iodine Would banish all the cynic's sore moans. Thyroid extract would redress His balance and would put to flight His sickly visions. Nonetheless, The pessimist is always right. -MORRIS BISHOP . dered to move. He dreaded moving; it was axiomatic that a speakeasy lost most of its customers if it moved. He took a lease on a building across the street and sent out a number of indignant letters on Hollywood. "It has ruined the morals of the entire population of this country, and now it is ruining me," he wrote. On the Sunday night he was scheduled to move, delegations from Yale, Harvard, and Columbia showed up and announced that they would help. "I dealed out the grog and it certainly was funny to see a young blade with a skinful balancing a table on his nut as he moved across the street," Madden wrote later. He didn't lose a customer. He spent $8,700 to outfit and decorate the new place, and the least costly but most valuable decorations were Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Wil- liams, Columbia, Smith, Vassar, Welles- ley, and Bryn Mawr pennants; his best customers came from these schools. S H 0 R TL Y after he opened his sec- ond speakeasy, Madden came to the conclusion that the good will built up by his letters was his biggest asset and resolved to take more pains with his writing. He began issuing a mime- ographed collection about once a week. He has never let the custom lapse, .....: - -.. ..... . .:: .::. ::: r: :: / J: _:' :!-::' :; j;; i;, t ::::::_:::::,:,:?f ::T :t""-' . and it has been a valuable one; he has moved twice since 1927-in 1930 he moved to 5 6 West Fifty-third Street, where his joint was called the Sideliner's Club, and left that location for his pres- ent one in 1 93 7-without losing much of his clientele. In content, the mim- eographed sheets have changed little through the years. A representative is- sue, which came out a couple of weeks ago, is three pages long, single-spaced. Across the top of the first page is a dec- laration in capitals, "HE'S IN AGAIN OR GIRLS ISN'T THAT 1fADDEN DUMB?" This is followed by a bitter, page-long essay on the machine age, which be- gins, "Sometimes when things are slow I stand behind my stick with nothing to do but let the whisky age and wonder what the hell ever became of money. I mean the real clams. Its nothing but checks, checks, checks, all day and far into the nIght. My God dont nobody use money today?" On the second page he describes several weddings of old customers he went to last summer. He was most impressed by the wedding of Margery Knott and Bennett O'Boyle, because it was held in the Episcopal Church of St. John's in Lattingtown, Long Island, and he had an opportunity to sit in J. P. Morgan's pew. "I thought that through this experience I might get some of his knowledge how to make d h " h " s f d ." oug, e wrote. 0 ar no Ice. He uses most of his last page for a dis- cussion of the war, in which he states, "I am not no hero or wish to be one but what the hell I am fed up with bullies. If we declare ourself in why I will go. If the Navy wont take me I aint fussy the Army will do.)) The balance of the page is filled with saloon